CrowdStar, Incubator YouWeb Get on The Mobile Fund Bandwagon With $10 Million StarFund
July 15th, 2011
CrowdStar, the ninth largest developer on the Facebook platform by monthly actives, is launching a $10 million fund along with incubator YouWeb to scout for promising mobile game developers.
The fund comes at a time when the company is trying to diversify off Facebook and build out a mobile gaming business. CrowdStar recently launched a title focused at female, casual gamers called Top Girl that it has managed to keep in the top 10 grossing U.S. titles on iOS since its launch on June 16.
It also comes at a time when many mobile gaming companies like TinyCo, Glu Mobile and Gamevil have launched funds or contests to find promising IP from third-party developers. It’s partially a way to mitigate the risks of creating new games and also a way to grow a network of titles for distribution and cross-promotion.
StarFund’s game developers will get up to $250,000 in initial funding along with help on marketing and analytics. They’ll also get assistance in cracking international markets. CrowdStar said it may also be interested in ultimately acquiring developers too.
“This fund combines the expertise CrowdStar has in social gaming metrics and design with YouWeb’s ability to select entrepreneurial talent,” said Peter Relan, CrowdStar’s chief executive. “We’ve done social games for many years and that’s why our very first real title did well overnight.” YouWeb is Relan’s incubator and it spawned CrowdStar along with OpenFeint, which was bought by GREE earlier this year for $104 million. YouWeb remains the largest stakeholder in CrowdStar.
「私達は何年もの間社会的なゲームをしてきて、私達のまさに最初の本当のタイトルは徹夜でプレイしました。」YouWebはRelanの孵化器であり、それはOpenFeintとともにCrowdStarを産みました(1億0400万ドルで今年初期にグレーによって買われました)。
YouWebはCrowdStarにおいて最大のステークホルダーであり続けます。
What CrowdStar is asking for in return in terms of ownership and licensing is negotiable and determined on a case-by-case basis, Relan said. “This is not a factory approach to churning out startups,” he said.
There are probably a couple of forces driving the creation of these game funds and contests. When Apple cracked down on incentivized installs earlier this year, it didn’t ban developers from cross-promoting their own games — even if they involve virtual currency rewards for downloads. So gaming companies in response are looking for third-party titles they can either own a partial stake in or publish. Then they can use them to serve interstitial ads for their own games.
「これは、新興企業を大量生産することへの工場アプローチではありません」と彼は言いました。
これらのゲーム資金とコンテストの作成を動かしている2、3の力がたぶんあります。
incentivizedされて、取り締まられたアップルが今年早くインストールする時に、彼らがダウンロードに対するバーチャルな通貨報酬がゲームに関係していて、それは開発者が彼ら自身のものをクロスプロモーションすることを禁止しませんでした。
従って、ゲーム会社の反応は、彼らが部分的な持ち分を所有するか、出版することができるサードパーティタイトルを捜しています。
そして、彼らは、彼ら自身のゲームのためにすき間の広告を出すように彼らを使うことができます。
Secondarily, not all companies in the mobile gaming space have the capital to make outright acquisitions. Zynga — one of the exceptions — reported $965.6 million in cash and cash equivalents on the balance sheet at the end of the first quarter of this year, and it’s used that to buy 15 companies in the past 13 months. With its forthcoming IPO, it will have much more liquid market for its shares, which will help out with acquisitions too. EA has also been very acquisitive in the space with smaller deals like Chillingo and Firemint. It used a $550 million bridge loan to buy PopCap Games for up to $1.3 billion, it said last week.
今年の第1四半期の終わりのバランスシートの現金と現金の当量における例外で報告された9億6560万ドルのZynga。
そして、それは過去13ヶ月で15の会社を買うために使いました。
その間近の新規公募によって、それはその株のためのずっとより多くの不安定な市場を持つでしょう(それはまた取得物によって助けるでしょう)。
EAはまたChillingoとFiremintのようなより小さな取引によるスペースで非常に貪欲でした。
最高13億ドルまでにPopCapゲームを買うために、それは5億5000万ドルのつなぎ資金を使ったとそれは先週言いました。
But for everyone else who doesn’t have that sort of scale or revenue, contests and funds may be a more capital efficient way of competing with giants like EA, Zynga and Gameloft for sourcing new intellectual property. TinyCo was the first to kick off the trend, using $5 million from its revenues and the $18 million it recently raised from Andreessen Horowitz to finance games from third-party developers. Glu also has a development contest for which it will award up to $500,000. South Korea’s Gamevil, which has been publishing titles from small, independent studios for some time, also announced a $10 million fund.
TinyCoは、その収益からの500万ドルとサードパーティ開発者からゲームに資金提供するために、それが最近アンドリーセン・ホロヴィッツから集めた1800万ドルを使って、トレンドを開始する一番目でした。
Gluはまた、それが最高500,000ドルまで授与するであろう開発コンテストを持っています。
しばらくの間小さく、独立なスタジオからタイトルを出版していた韓国のGamevilはまた1000万ドルの資金を発表しました。